Tune into Pianomania

10 April 2012

A documentary about piano tuning may not turn many heads — but Robert Cibis and Lilian Franck’s film is a good deal more fascinating than you might think. Its hero is Stefan Knupfer, Steinway’s master tuner in Vienna, and he has to see to it that Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the French virtuoso, has the grand he wants exactly the way he wants it for a recording of Bach’s The Art of Fugue. Lang Lang and Alfred Brendel have to be soothed with tiny adjustments, too.

They are not easy to please, detecting tones most of us wouldn’t recognise as different, albeit in unfailingly polite ways. Even with Dolby surround sound and 90 separate sound tracks, we can only wonder at the acute ears of both Knupfer and his clients.

Pianomania

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